A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [195]
‘Is all right,’ he said, coming down the hillside, the brand dripping fire. ‘Is all right. Fire is a funny thing. You think it out, but it blazing like hell underground.’
One of the smoke wisps shrank like a failing fountain. ‘That one take your advice and gone underground,’ Savi said.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, rubbing one itching ankle against the other. ‘Perhaps it is a little too green. Perhaps we should wait until next week.’
There were protests.
Savi put her hand to her face and backed away.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘The heat,’ Savi said.
‘You just carry on. See if you don’t get hot somewhere else. Clowns. That’s what I’m raising. A pack of clowns.’
From the kitchen Shama shouted, ‘Hurry up, all-you. The sun going down.’
They went to examine the nests Mr Biswas had fired. They found them collapsed, reduced: shallow heaps of grey leaves and black twigs. Only one had caught, and from it the fire proceeded unspectacularly, avoiding thick branches and nibbling at lesser ones, making the bark curl, attacking the green wood with a great deal of smoke, staining it, then retreating to run up a twig with a businesslike air, scorching the brown leaves, creating a brief blaze, then halting. On the gound there were a few isolated flames, none higher than an inch.
‘Fireworks,’ Savi said.
‘Well, do it yourself.’
The children ran to the kitchen and seized the pitch-oil Shama had bought for the lamps. They poured the pitch-oil haphazardly on the bush and set it alight. In minutes the bush blazed and became a restless sea of yellow, red, blue and green. They exchanged theories about the various colours; they listened with pleasure to the chatter and crackle of the quick fire. Too soon the tall flames contracted. The sun set. Charred leaves rose in the air. After dinner they had the sad task of beating down the fire at the edge of the trench. The brown sea had turned black, with red glitters and twinkles.
‘All right,’ Mr Biswas said. ‘Puja over. Books now.’
They retired to the bare drawingroom. From time to time they went to the window. The hill was black against a lighter sky. Here and there it showed red and occasionally burst into yellow flame, which seemed unsupported, dancing in the air.
Anand was in a bus, one of those dilapidated, crowded buses that ran between Shorthills and Port of Spain. Something was wrong. He was lying on the floor of the bus and people were looking down at him and chattering. The bus must have been running over a newly-repaired road: the wheels were kicking up pebbles against the wings.
Myna and Kamla stood over him, and he was being shaken by Savi. He lay on his bedding in the drawingroom.
‘Fire!’ Savi said.
‘What o’clock it is?’
‘Two or three. Get up. Quick.’
The chattering, the pebbles against the wings, was the noise of the fire. Through the window he saw that the hill had turned red, and the land was red in places where no fire had been intended.
‘Pa? Ma?’ he asked.
‘Outside. We have to go to the big house to tell them.’
The house appeared to be encircled by the red, unblazing bush. The heat made breathing painful. Anand looked for the two poui trees at the top of the hill. They were black and leafless against the sky.
Hurriedly he dressed.
‘Don’t leave us,’ Myna said.
He heard Mr Biswas shouting outside, ‘Just beat it back. Just beat it back from the kitchen. House safe. No bush around it. Just keep it back from the kitchen.’
‘Savi!’ Shama called. ‘Anand wake?’
‘Don’t leave us,’ Kamla cried.
All four children left the house and walked past the newly-forked land in front to the path that led to the road. Just below the brow of the hill they were surprised by an absolute darkness. Between the path and the road there was no fire.
Myna and Kamla began to cry, afraid of the darkness before them, the fire behind them.
‘Leave them,’ Shama called. ‘And hurry up.’
Savi and Anand picked their way down the earth steps they couldn’t see.
‘You can hold my hand,’ Anand said.
They held hands and worked their way down the hill, into the gully, up the gully and into the road. Trees vaulted